TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Economy Minister Seyed Shamseddin Hosseini said Tehran
plans to exclude the currencies of the western states, specially dollar and
euro, from its foreign trade.

"According to the decision made by the cabinet workgroup, dollar and euro
will be gradually put aside from Iran's trade with other countries,"
Hosseini said, addressing a meeting in Tehran on Monday.

The minister noted that Iran has changed its trade partners and redirecting
its trade transactions from such countries as the UK and Germany to
countries like China and Turkey.

Such changes reduce the need to third currencies like dollar and euro, he
added.

In July 2010, Iran's First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi stressed that
the "country plans to replace Dollar and Euro with other currencies in its
oil trades".

"We are free to choose any currency to sell our crude oil and this issue
depends on Iran's interests," Rahimi said in a ceremony releasing a report
by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

"The important issue is to exclude euros and dollars," he added.

In 2009, Venezuela's president said that countries including Venezuela,
Russia and Iran had proposed that the US dollar should be replaced as the
currency used for oil trade.

"We've been talking about this in OPEC. Venezuela agrees and there are other
countries, such as Iran and Russia, that also agree with this idea," Chavez
told reporters in the central Bolivian region of Cochabamba.

Iran's Trade Promotion Organization in 2009 announced a project to
completely exclude the US dollar from the country's foreign revenues and
reserves.

The constant declining value of the dollar and euro and persisting economic
crisis in the US and EU has forced many countries to drop the currencies in
favor those more stable.